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MORE INFORMATION |
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Contact The Authorities
Please don't let the Australian Government forget her. Contact the embassy in your country.
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Be Pro-Active
Read the family site, read her book, donate, write to her. Tell your friends about this travasty and about her desperate situation.
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Who Are We?
We are just like you: people who came across this horrendous story on the internet and couldn't walk away and leave her. Can you?
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Please Don't Walk Away...
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| About Me |
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I am sometimes asked fairly direct questions: "Who are you?", "Why are you trying to help an Australian woman?", "Why are you Morpheus"?, and similar.
Although I have attempted to introduce myself on a previous occasion, I apparently did not do very well. I'll therefore try again, but this time using a question and answer format.
"WHO ARE YOU?"
It has to be said that in the spring of 2008 I would never have seen myself campaigning for the release of someone who I had never met, and most likely never will meet. Nothing could have been further from my mind as I searched online for some royalty-free images of a courtroom. I was sprucing up a tediously boring website on US corporate law which I owned for equally boring reasons, and was Googling on terms like "court", "judge" and similar.
The inevitable images were returned: the Old Bailey, a gavel, grainy old judges. Except for one thumbnail picture, which stood out as totally different to the rest: a postage stamp sized photograph of a young woman in obvious and terrible distress. It was as gut wrenching as it was unexpected, and I clicked on it to see what on earth was going on.
I was confronted with a real life story of incredible cruelty and injustice. As I read the old newspaper report (June 2005), it was one of those which you naturally think will have been sorted out in the end. That the Australian government will have protected this young woman from what was being done to her. That some sort of appeal would free her.
For peace of mind I quickly searched Google on her name to confirm the happy ending. What I found though was scarcely believable. She was still there, and her government had simply left her. How could it be? She was clearly being crushed: why weren't people helping her?
As I read page after page, each with hugely distressing images of Schapelle Corby in turmoil and pain, the bigger picture became uglier and uglier. Even at that early stage I uncovered obvious corruption, complicity, and incredibly, hostile opinion management by the media. Yes, the media in Australia had set about pulling attention away from the real situation: away from her suffering and away from the show trial. Having studied the media generally for many years, I guess it was instinctive to spot this aspect fairly quickly. But it was still sickening to see.
Perhaps I am soft, but I found this to be hugely distressing. The whole case was steeped in politics, corruption and self interest, and the innocent victim had simply been dispensed with. The vision of this bewildered young woman in the squalor of a third world prison cell after all this time was simply painful.
Another aspect which I wasn't expecting to find was that of international relations and politics. But through digging deeply enough, and researching activity by politicians, government agencies, and the media, the underlying political imperative became horribly apparent. As did the brutal disregard for an innocent by too many people to ever comprehend.
I was confronted by an appalling truth, and I couldn't walk away from it. It was like a splinter in my mind.
I therefore researched more deeply and set about trying to help her from the other side of the world. As an internet guy, my natural starting point was to create a website, so I began developing Schapelle.Net, gathering data on the underlying case as I went along.
For me, everything flowed logically forward from here, including a series of reports, blogs, music projects, and anything else I could think of. It is surprising how good old fashioned motivation can increase productivity. I even learned how to put together those little YouTube videos.
So who am I?
I'm just a regular guy from the UK who accidentally discovered an innocent in desperate need, and couldn't and won't turn the page and leave her. Fortunately, I am not the only one.
"WHY MORPHEUS?"
On the internet you see pseudonyms everywhere: from blogs to forums to newsgroups to media columns. It is, to a large extent, the normal modus operandi.
One benefit of this is that different pseudonyms can project positivity in different places. However, the main benefit is one of privacy.
For example, even using pseudonyms I receive my fair share of crank emails and threats. Using my real details would simply increase these risks, for no obvious benefit. I guess you could also add to this that I am not someone who naturally seeks limelight (I am too self-conscious, and even dislike having my photograph taken!).
My Photo for the Global Protest
I therefore follow the norm and write under a suitable banner name. I simply tend to act like others on the internet, for exactly the same reasons. Morpheus is my chosen pseudonym on this particular website. I hope you like it!
"WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO HELP AN AUSTRALIAN WOMAN?"
At the beginning, as I first started building this website, I felt very much alone. Schapelle Corby had been in that cell for years, and the media in Australia had done a very good job at moving the agenda away from her torment and the grotesque human rights abuses.
I had accepted this situation as the reality, and presumed that I was pretty much the only one out here in cyberland who cared. It was therefore something of a joy when I began to encounter others who were trying to help her. I found a support forum, website visitors started to send their best wishes and to offer help, and eventually even talented artists were sending their songs to me.
I realized that I wasn't just one at all: I was one of a team which actually stretched across the world. These were dear people who had encountered Schapelle, worked out the truth, and were not prepared to close their eyes, and leave her to an unimaginable fate. They were people who were doing what they could: writing letters, talking to others, researching.... and so much more.
I saw that anybody could join in, and everyone was welcome. I also understood that Schapelle needed every one of us, and that every one of us had something to offer.
So ultimately, my answer to the question "Why are you trying to help an Australian woman?" became "Why AREN'T YOU trying to help her?"
"DO YOU FEEL THREATENED?"
Not really. I have obviously been threatened by keyboard warriors on places like YouTube, as has everyone who posts something with anything to say. I've received a CV offering bodyguard services from a firm based in Jakarta, to my personally named email account. And I have been advised several times that the Australian media, the Aus/Indon governments, and others, are "investigating" me.
Obviously it isn't nice, but I am a UK citizen and all I have done is state the truth and promote it, which is a basic freedom. Others do the same from the US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. The idea of yielding to any of these primitive threats is simply unimaginable.
"ARE YOU IN CONTACT WITH SCHAPELLE HERSELF?"
No. For several reasons really. One reason is that contact could be misconstrued or misrepresented: the truth could be distorted to make it appear that I was somehow acting under orders, which could be used against her. I won't risk that, so I have never even attempted to make contact, and never will. I am just a normal guy fighting injustice and cruelty, with no special contacts or status.
Another reason is that I am not particularly good at one-to-one correspondence. I fear I would clumsily upset her, despite my sincerest efforts not to, which obviously is the worst imaginable outcome in the circumstances.
I therefore do whatever I can to help without contact.
"WHO ELSE IS THERE WITH YOU LOCALLY?"
At first there was no-one, but gradually I introduced the story to friends and colleagues. I told them face to face about Schapelle, directed them to this website, and updated them with news.
There are good neighbours and good people here, who have taken an interest. They have sent care packages, written letters to governments, and even provide quotes for press releases and for the website. So from one person has emerged a small group in the north of England. It is a model which can be repeated anywhere.
It is hugely positive and encouraging to have local support, and valuable in helping me to keep one foot on the ground.
"WHEN WILL YOU STOP?"
When Schapelle Corby is free.
So there you have it: that's my story. The obvious main point is that there is nothing extraordinary here. I'm just like you.... and like you I am appalled and distressed at what is happening to Schapelle Corby. I hope therefore that you will do exactly as I did: refuse to walk away, and refuse to turn the page.
I would urge you to reach out and try to help. Take a look at the what to do page, join the forum, read her book, tell your friends about her and about this site. Join me and all the others in trying to save her. Please don't walk away....
Failure truly isn't an option.
Morpheus
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